Star Wars Outlaws patch causing problems for PS5 players

IGN:

A hefty Star Wars Outlaws update coming in at 8.5gb was released on PS5 last night, bringing with it a 40fps mode and bug fixes. But it's causing problems for some PS5 players who have already made progress into Ubisoft's sandbox Star Wars game.

In the wake of releasing Star Wars Outlaws Patch 1.000.002, Ubisoft sent the following message to some players warning them that they may encounter issues with their current save if they were playing on an older version.

To best experience the Outer Rim, we rolled out a maintenance to make sure everyone is playing the latest version of the game. As one of the players affected who had access to an older version of the game, we are aware you might be encountering some issues after this recent patch. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused...Once you’ve confirmed you have the latest version, please start a new save to fully enjoy Star Wars Outlaws as our team intended. If you continue on a prior save you will unfortunately face issues and progression blockers.

https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-outlaws-patch-1000002-new-save-ubisoft

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Without speaking to the quality of this game, since I haven't played it, I think this is a great example of what a scam some game companies are running these days. A new trend in gaming is to charge players extra for a "gold edition" of the game -- in the case of Star Wars Outlaws, the cost is $100, a $30 upcharge -- where one of the bonuses means you get to play the game a few days earlier than other people. It seems that quite a lot of people decide to do this, which means that rather than paying people to beta test their games, game companies can now get beta testers to pay them instead.

These days most games aren't finished upon release, and usually require early patching -- sometimes extensive patching. The fact that Star Wars Outlaws needed an early patch isn't a problem, but what IS a problem is charging people extra money to access a game early, and then after a few days wiping out their progress and forcing them to start again, which is what this patch does. Some of the players affected by this had already played for a few dozen hours, and will now have to start all over again -- after paying a premium for the privilege.

And Star Wars Outlaws doesn't even come out for regular players until tomorrow, so this issue only affects people who paid extra to play early. The people who waited until launch day saved themselves $30 and got the benefit of a broken game being patched before they were able to play it. Meanwhile the people who paid an extra $30 to play early got screwed.